[Technical note: I lost my lens cap to my favourite lens last week and have been having to carry my point-and-shoot around instead so, uh, yeah… maybe that shows in this batch, somewhat. But hey the love is there and the important thing is I am still going strong on the photo-a-day thing. 2 weeks down… 50 odd to go :) ]

Day 7

‘Where’s the pedals?’ For her birthday, we gave our two-year-old a new balance bike. Her first question when she got on it: ‘where’s the pedals?’ Hahaha. So much for me buying the best thing out there for toddlers to learn to ride a bike really well and young. She set me straight. She got on the balance bike and her dad helped her keep upright to begin with and she did enjoy it… and then she saw another little girl’s pink bicycle with tassels and kittens on it and she was off. She really wanted to ride that one that had training wheels and… well… pedals.

Day 8

A lovely gift from a lovely friend:

Day 9

Still in her PJs, baby puts together a puzzle cousin Sally gave her for Xmas

A finished sample: she put all the pieces together and she knows they are supposed to form a rectangle of sorts… but clearly has no regard for how the picture comes together. Hahaha!

Day 10

A visit to the California Academy of Sciences:

Pipoca is sitting in a big ol’ tunnel with a TV at the end… duh.

‘So what that the pear is the size of my head… I am going to eat it all’

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You can also follow along on flickr, if that is your thing (if so come ‘friend’ me and like my piccies :)

My ‘real’ camera broke about a month ago, so I had to dig out an old 2MP camera Ameli had been playing with to use. It’s been a nightmare. I’d loaned another ‘old’ but better camera to a friend and he posted that back to me today, so while I’m still without a ‘real’ camera at least I stand a chance now! If these are your not ‘real’ camera photos, I’m totally impressed! You could write tutorials and hints and tips for us Mamatographers each month, I’m sure!

Heh, photography tips…? hah. never thought of that! I do love these, though: http://babymoonphotography.com/blog/600 Isn’t she great [one of the many photographers that keep me humble and reminding me I have SO MUCH to learn]

Yes, I took that shot with my hubby’s macro-lens. I am the ‘photographer’. He is the lover of all things tech and gadgety… including cool lenses, it turns out – and he takes some pretty good shots himself, so he is really a photographer, too, nowadays :)

I really enjoy your photos, too. They really tell a story and invite us in to your life. Cheers again for the fab inspiration for starting this project!

Well, you could always paint her bike pink and add tassels! Don’t you just love how you think you’ve gotten the best and coolest thing out there and they want the one the other kid has – at 1/4 the price!

And my youngest loved puzzles since he knew that you could put them together and make a picture (maybe around 17 months old?) He started out doing his puzzles the exact same way and your daughter is the only other child I’ve seen who does them like that. Now, at 3 years old, he’s doing 100-piece puzzles. You know what he gets the biggest kick doing with them? Dumping three puzzles-worth of pieces into a pile on the floor and doing all three puzzles at the same time. I wonder if your LO will do something similar?

Yes the whole ‘I want the pink one with kittens’ thing was a big lesson and reminder not to take myself too seriously and – more importantly – that what I may want for her is at most half the picture. What she wants for herself is far more important. Hah.

Crunchy mom – zero; Commercial world – one.

And, oh, wow, your kid sounds amazing. Honestly never thought of giving her a puzzle before now. Even this one is marked 3 and up but I just thought I would let her play with it. I sometimes get blinded by the ‘age labels’ and forget they are largely meaningless. Good reminder. Thanks. She doesn’t always do them like that but yeah, mostly that is the way it goes: right shape, only occasionally matching pictures. She does often narrate, too, like: “here is the dog’s butt and here is its head” (on two different pieces) – hahah. That would be funny if she went that way. Neither NinjaDad nor I are super into puzzles… but you never know. She is her own person, afterall.